The American newspaper Wall Street Journal on Wednesday dedicated an editorial to Spanish politics. The North American media highlights that the victory of the "center right in the regional elections" endangers the socialist government, which has forced President Sánchez to advance the general elections.
For the WSJ, the announcement of the electoral advance took everyone by surprise, including senior officials in the Sánchez government, and highlights that the president's electoral commitment may be aimed at avoiding an internal rebellion in the PSOE after Sunday's defeat.
The newspaper highlights that the conservatives took control of 12 of the 17 Spanish regions and more than 8,000 municipalities. "Madrid is now a stronghold for the center-right Popular Party", where "it obtained an absolute majority in the Madrid City Council and in the regional Parliament" which "guaranteed the re-election of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the charismatic president of the region ".
According to the WSJ editorial, the elections took place at a time when the ruling left-wing coalition has struggled to raise taxes on the richest and has "adopted an increasingly intrusive policy on the private economy." He says that "the right to property" has become a political problem, since the government "tried to limit the price of rents, while being permissive with illegal squatters."
It also refers to the elimination of parental consent to abort from the age of 16 and that "a sexual consent law defended by the far-left party Podemos" ended up reducing prison sentences for some sex offenders.
The Wall Street Journal considers that although the Spanish left has said after the regional elections that the Popular Party will have to unite with the populist right of Vox to govern and the leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, has warned of a "reactionary wave" that would reverse social and environmental advances in Spain, "at a regional level, the influence of Vox seems exaggerated". She adds that the Popular Party does not need her support where it has an absolute majority and in other places it has the support of other center-right parties.
"On Wednesday, Sánchez framed the general elections as a choice between a prime minister on the side of Biden or on the side of Trump; on the side of Lula or on the side of Bolsonaro. But if last weekend's vote is any indication, the voters are rightly more concerned about the extremism of the Spanish ruling left," concludes the editorial
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